Starbucks is Mean.
They are always tempting me with those big, fat blueberry muffins, but the muffins aren’t vegan. Eh, store-bought pastries often look better than they taste, anyway. Luckily I have my own muffin-esque recipe that is insanely-delicious, not to mention healthier than the Starbucks pastries:
It’s everything you’d want from a warm blueberry muffin. However, I should cut the Bucks a break. After all, they do sell vegan Frappuccinos now. First step Frappuccinos, second step blueberry muffins. (Props to anyone who picked up on the Miss Congeniality reference.)
Blueberry Muffin in a Bowl
(See “Variations” below for flavors!)
- 1/8 to 1/4 cup nondairy creamer (I use Silk)
- 1 serving cooked bulgur or oatmeal (See: How to Cook Bulgur)
- sweetener of choice, to taste
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- fresh or frozen blueberries, post-blending
Make sure to cook your bulgur or oats with salt. (I use 1/4 tsp, and it’s important to put this in before cooking the grains.) Once cooked, put the bulgur or oats in your blending gadget, such as a Magic Bullet short cup. Add everything else (except berries) and blend! Now add in some frozen blueberries, or any other fruit, nut butters, chocolate chips, etc.
Variations I’ve tried:
1. Strawberry Shortcake (add frozen strawberries pre-blending)
2. Chocolate Cream Pie (see optional ingredient, above)
3. Cinnamon-Raisin (add cinnamon and raisins, post-blending)
On a cold day, nothing’s better than a blueberry muffin in a bowl. Except… a blueberry muffin in a bowl that you don’t have to leave your house to buy.
Do you like Starbucks?
People seem to be very passionate about Starbucks. They either love it (Fun coffee drinks! Passion Tea!) or hate it (Over-priced! They’re everywhere!). The company has multiple facebook fan pages, but there’s also an entire website, ihatestarbucks.com, dedicated to all things anti-Starbucks. In any case, I owe Starbucks for a lot of good memories. In high school, it was the place to hang out. Oftentimes, we wouldn’t even buy anything. Horrible of us… and now I’m wondering why they didn’t ever make us leave!
I love Starbucks but they are way too expensive to go to very often.
This is another great recipe
By the way I made your banana pancakes for one. I posted the changes I made on my blog. I hope you don’t mind. They were delicious!
I live in Seattle and work at Starbucks, so it seams funny to me that coffee could ever be “too expensive.” Here, money is no object when it comes to coffee. It is a necessity, a social norm, grabbing a coffee is just like ‘tea time,’ it’s part of our every day…
I like the community of Starbucks and how it can connect people and brighten their day with a beverage, obviously the coffee culture is a bit different here though! Every city has their thang though, right?
AND I am happy to report that you the 8 Grain Rolls are vegan! I don’t know if you have them in texas but I highly recommend them! They’re delicious toasted…very cinnamon raisiny…
The rest of the pastries are pretty terrible though…
Wha? Cinnamon raisin things that are vegan? I haven’t been to Starbucks in a while, but now I want to RUN over there to check this out!
I don’t drink coffee so I don’t like Starbucks..LOL … A lot of people just buy a cup of coffee from there and sit for hours because they have free wifi..Just like you, I also wonder why the workers didn’t chase them away.
hey sweetie! your larabar piccie is great! good use of a blurred background 🙂 My boyfriend is an amazing photographer and is gradally teaching me how to use a camera. We usually photograph animals so my food photography still needs some work! Hugs x x
We’d make a perfect team! I need to work on my people/animal photos! (But then again, it sounds like you already have a much more knowledgeable photo partner in crime hehe)
No, I don’t think you will ever find a blueberry muffin crumbled over another blueberry muffin anywhere else! You are so innovative! 🙂
i want try those new larabars so bad! but your blueberry muffin oatmeal sounds like the perfect sub until i get my hands on them!
I have the same relationship with starbucks–it’s where I studied for the SATs with my friends, but I can live without its menu. I always get the exact same thing when I go–Tazo passion tea!
I used to work for Starbucks. They’re no better than Mcdonalds with the bigger than big corporate attitude….almost ‘cult like’ with the “There is no I in Team” attitude. They hire teenagers almost exclusively and then try to indoctrinate them with the Starbucks mission statement. They’re drinks are highly processed and I was always shocked by the amount of sugar included in almost every hot or cold drink excluding black coffee. All of the so called baked goods have been sitting in the freezer for who knows how long and left to defrost over night.
Well, reading your comment made me feel a lot less left out that their defrosted baked goods aren’t vegan! 😉
I have never heard of anything being frozen and defrosted for the five years I’ve worked at Starbucks. It’s interesting how different the processes must be in different locations… There’s no sugar in our black coffee, unless you add it…
Oh how I wish blueberries were in season, you lucky girl!
Starbucks (and other businesses like it over here) provided my girlfriends and I an excellent hang out after school so they’ll always be a soft spot for them and they do make some good drinks for hot days but I prefer coffee from other places like small cafes and such. Not sure why, but something to do with supporting the little guy. This is probably a silly question, but are there any other big chain stores like Starbucks (ie coffee places) in the US. We’ve got some of our own which compete a lot with Starbucks especially in the last few years as Starbucks closed a lot of their franchises.
Hmmm… nothing that competes on such a big scale as Starbucks, but maybe Dunkin Donuts in the northeast. Or Seattle Coffee. But those seem to be more regional (i.e. there are thousands of Dunkins in Boston, but only 1 or 2 in Dallas).
Fortunately for my bank account, I can’t tolerate caffeine and don’t drink coffee these days.
But this post has given me quite the craving for blueberry muffins! I think it’s about time to whip some up.